I suspect it's merely the latest fad. The average casual user can
be somewhat fickle. There was a similar major shift when Red Hat came
out in 1995, another somewhat after Mandrake came out, as well as minor
blips when Corel, Storm, and TurboLinux became available. Even Caldera
set the world on end for a time with their click-and-drool friendly
install tool in 1999 (which most other distributions more-or-less
copied. Ubuntu is yet another Debian clone, dumbed down a bit more.
>At the last LUG meeting, they were giving out Ubuntu "Feisty Fawn" CDs,
>and I may even install it on an unused partition to see what all the
>hoopla is about.

"Feisty Fawn" is release 7.04 (year 7, month 4, or April 2007). They
seem to be releasing twice a year, with the next one tentatively named
Gutsy Gibbon. It is claimed that the names are meaningless. I looked at
the first two releases (Warty Warthog or 4.10, and Hoary Hedgehog or
5.04) and decided they were aimed at a different user.
>I think that some people have left Usenet due to unpleasantness in
>various NGs.

I can't say
>Also, I think that NGs have a bit of a reputation as "geeky" because
>you can't access them with your web browser but actually have to learn
>a new program.

I dunno - what's that? Looking at headers in comp.os.linux.* and
alt.os.linux.* I see a number of people using browsers in addition to
real news tools like nn, pan, slrn, tin... who's the dinosaur using
xrn? Some developer by the look of it - alt.os.linux.debian.
>There are web-based boards that are actually mirrors of NGs. Some of
>those web sites try to give the impression that it's their own "message
>board."

Well, yeah - http://groups.google.com is one notorious example, with a
reputation for spam that has a lot of people killing any article with a
"Message-ID:" ending in 'google.com' There's a shark here that does
that and suggests how other can too.
>ALL of those seem to be declining overall. I think we may just have to
>accept that Usenet is becoming less popular. Of course, as Linux users
>we are already used to being in a minority, and we are used to working
>with things that might be considered "too geeky" by many.

I don't know if it's to geeky, or is something that ISPs are not telling
their customers about. Usenet takes up an enormous amount of bandwidth
on the wire, and a "proper" news server with perhaps 50-125K groups
and retentivity (a week or two for binary groups, up to a year or so
for text based groups) means a fair amount of disk space. You may
occasionally see someone talking about "the endless September"

September 1993 was when AOL released their users onto Usenet. But AOL
has ceased offering network news. and in their "tough bananas" message
to their customers recommended they use google groups. A lot of other
providers are also dropping Usenet as a cost cutting development. The
result is fewer people having "direct" access. You can see this if you
look at the news headers, and parse out the "Path:' header. You see
fewer and fewer organizations listed. (That header lists the servers
between your news server, and the posting news server. You are posting
from Supernews, and that's nine hops from me - six in Supernews, San
Diego State University, and two in giganews.)

Old guy

Re: Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

On 11 Jun 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in article, The First Adam wrote:
>Adam wrote:
>> Another Adam wrote:
>Jeez, how many Adams *are* there in here?

Apparently more than a few
>The First Adam

Is that a dorsal fin I see...

WHOOP!!! WHOOP!!! WHOOP!!!

MAN THE DEPTH CHARGE RACKS! ;-)

Old guy

Re: Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

Moe Trin wrote:
> On 11 Jun 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in article
>, The First Adam wrote:
>
>>Adam wrote:
>>> Another Adam wrote:
>
>>Jeez, how many Adams *are* there in here?
>
> Apparently more than a few
>
>>The First Adam
>
> Is that a dorsal fin I see...
>
> WHOOP!!! WHOOP!!! WHOOP!!!
>
> MAN THE DEPTH CHARGE RACKS! ;-)

Re: Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

Adam wrote:
> Like, some noise applies to ALL groups, and
> some groups attract HIGH noise. Readers are
> attracted to SUBJECTS or specific-groups, first
> and foremost surely.

Yes, definitely. For example, a few months ago I subscribed to
rec.photo.equipment.35mm because I thought they'd discuss 35mm photo
equipment. After a week or two I unsubscribed because so few of the
posts had to do with the supposed topic.
> So its still perplexing why a.o.l.mandrake may
> be drying up - apart from the possible and incomplete
> migration to a.o.l.mandriva, where available.

I can understand why a.o.l.mandrake is losing readers, as older users
switch from some version of Mandrake to some version of Mandriva 2007.
Newer users may not realize that Mandriva was ever known as anything
else. What I'm worried about is that I'd expect that people who used to
post to a.o.l.mandrake would now post to a.o.l.mandriva, and I'd expect
the sum of the posts to both groups would stay about the same or
increase slightly.

In my case I started in a.o.l.mandrake, then added a.o.l.mandriva when
my server carried it. By now it looks like most folks are hanging out
at a.o.l.mandriva, so when I have a question (which is often!), I post
it to a.o.l.mandriva because more people are likely to see it there.

Another Adam

Re: Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

The First Adam wrote:
> Adam wrote:
>> Another Adam wrote:
>
> Jeez, how many Adams *are* there in here?

I think the number's going to increase. The name got more popular in
the 1970s. I'm from the end of the baby boom, and in my whole life I've
only met two or three Adams who were around my age, and never met one
who was older. ("Adam West" is the stage name of William West Anderson,
born 1928.) If you hear of someone named Adam, chances are good that
he's mid-thirties or younger.

Another Adam

Re: Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

Moe Trin wrote:
> "Feisty Fawn" is release 7.04 (year 7, month 4, or April 2007). They
> seem to be releasing twice a year, with the next one tentatively named
> Gutsy Gibbon. It is claimed that the names are meaningless. I looked at
> the first two releases (Warty Warthog or 4.10, and Hoary Hedgehog or
> 5.04) and decided they were aimed at a different user.

Thanks for explaining their numbering scheme. That's why my system's
partitioned to allow more than one distro. I get the impression that a
lot of Linux users have at least one "experimental" distro installed, in
addition to the one used for everyday work.
>> Also, I think that NGs have a bit of a reputation as "geeky" because
>> you can't access them with your web browser but actually have to learn
>> a new program.
>
> ]User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4)
> Gecko/20070509 SeaMonkey/1.1.2
>
> I dunno - what's that? Looking at headers in comp.os.linux.* and
> alt.os.linux.* I see a number of people using browsers in addition to
> real news tools like nn, pan, slrn, tin... who's the dinosaur using
> xrn? Some developer by the look of it - alt.os.linux.debian.

Okay, maybe it's the same program, but Usenet involves all sorts of new
commands and rules. It's sort of like a corner of the web that most
people don't know about, and some of the few who do are put off by
having to learn all sorts of new things to access it. (Yes, I know that
Usenet is not part of the Web!)
>> There are web-based boards that are actually mirrors of NGs. Some of
>> those web sites try to give the impression that it's their own "message
>> board."
>
> Well, yeah - http://groups.google.com is one notorious example, with a
> reputation for spam that has a lot of people killing any article with a
> "Message-ID:" ending in 'google.com' There's a shark here that does
> that and suggests how other can too.

I was thinking more of sites likehttp://www.hostingforum.ca/mandrake.html where you will find this very
thread displayed as if we were members of a web-based board.
> I don't know if it's too geeky, or is something that ISPs are not telling
> their customers about. Usenet takes up an enormous amount of bandwidth
> on the wire, and a "proper" news server with perhaps 50-125K groups
> and retentivity (a week or two for binary groups, up to a year or so
> for text based groups) means a fair amount of disk space.

I'm switching ISPs, and I don't recall my new ISP mentioning anything at
all about Usenet newsgroups in their advertising. (My old ISP did
mention "over 40,000 newsgroups" in their ads.) It turns out that my
new ISP has about 30,000 newsgroups but I figured that if it didn't
include Usenet, I could find a decent newsserver for a low price.
> A lot of other
> providers are also dropping Usenet as a cost cutting development. The
> result is fewer people having "direct" access. You can see this if you
> look at the news headers, and parse out the "Path:' header. You see
> fewer and fewer organizations listed. (That header lists the servers
> between your news server, and the posting news server. You are posting
> from Supernews, and that's nine hops from me - six in Supernews, San
> Diego State University, and two in giganews.)

I'm surprised to see SDSU in there. I think I'm now posting from
trndny09, or maybe gnilink.net. The "Path:" header reminds me of my
college days, when we had to explicitly route email through the gateways
connecting one network to another.

Another Adam

Re: Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

Another Adam wrote:
> The First Adam wrote:
>> Adam wrote:
>>> Another Adam wrote:
>>
>> Jeez, how many Adams *are* there in here?
>
> I think the number's going to increase. The name got more popular in
> the 1970s. I'm from the end of the baby boom, and in my whole life I've
> only met two or three Adams who were around my age, and never met one
> who was older. ("Adam West" is the stage name of William West Anderson,
> born 1928.) If you hear of someone named Adam, chances are good that
> he's mid-thirties or younger.

Amen.

--
The Last Adam

Re: Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

On Wed, 13 Jun 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in article, Another Adam wrote:
>That's why my system's partitioned to allow more than one distro. I
>get the impression that a lot of Linux users have at least one
>"experimental" distro installed, in addition to the one used for
>everyday work.

It's certainly not an uncommon situation, but it really does depend on
what the user is doing. All of my systems at home are "working" systems,
meaning I do little to no experimenting on them. I have been using the
same install we use at work, both for a common standard, and the fact
that it simplifies support issues. When it is time to upgrade to a new
distribution, we've been running it on test boxes in the lab for at
least eight weeks searching for problems before it gets unleashed onto
the poor users.
>Okay, maybe it's the same program, but Usenet involves all sorts of new
>commands and rules. It's sort of like a corner of the web that most
>people don't know about, and some of the few who do are put off by
>having to learn all sorts of new things to access it. (Yes, I know that
>Usenet is not part of the Web!)

The limited experience I have using browsers as a news tool would agree
to some extent, but it's no where near like learning a completely new
application.
>I was thinking more of sites like
>http://www.hostingforum.ca/mandrake.html where you will find this very
>thread displayed as if we were members of a web-based board.

which is why my replies have that "On $DATE, in the Usenet newsgroup
$NEWSGROUP, in article $ARTICLE_NUMBER, $NAME wrote:" line at the top.
Some Usenet posters have gone so far as to put .sig lines (and sometimes
an extra header) prohibiting including their posts in ripe-off web based
discussion forums. I know a couple of individuals who included copyright
notices, and threatened legal action against at least a couple of forums
for violating it. Haven't seen anything like that recently.
>I'm switching ISPs, and I don't recall my new ISP mentioning anything at
>all about Usenet newsgroups in their advertising. (My old ISP did
>mention "over 40,000 newsgroups" in their ads.) It turns out that my
>new ISP has about 30,000 newsgroups

Given that there are only ~2300 groups in the Big Eight list, I don't
suppose that 30 or 40K shouldn't be enough. though I thought that
Supernews was carrying more than that.
>but I figured that if it didn't include Usenet, I could find a decent
>newsserver for a low price.

There's a newsgroup 'alt.free.newsservers' you could check. A problem
I've seen with them is that they tend to be abused by trolls and other
clueless fools, and some wind up on killfiles..
>I'm surprised to see SDSU in there.

Universities are still a major player in news distributions, and I've
seen dozens of US universities in the bang path. Our feed at work comes
from a Pac-ten school.
>I think I'm now posting from trndny09, or maybe gnilink.net.

Looks like gnilink.net to me.
>The "Path:" header reminds me of my college days, when we had to
>explicitly route email through the gateways connecting one network to
>another.

Don't forget that news was originally distributed using UUCP, and that
demanded a bang path environment. Actually if you look for the Usenet
Recipe Book (ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/usenet-recipes) you'll
see many of the recipes are signed by people using the old style
addresses

Old guy

Re: Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

Moe Trin wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Jun 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in article
> , Another Adam wrote:
>> I was thinking more of sites like
>> http://www.hostingforum.ca/mandrake.html where you will find this very
>> thread displayed as if we were members of a web-based board.
>
> which is why my replies have that "On $DATE, in the Usenet newsgroup
> $NEWSGROUP, in article $ARTICLE_NUMBER, $NAME wrote:" line at the top.
> Some Usenet posters have gone so far as to put .sig lines (and sometimes
> an extra header) prohibiting including their posts in rip-off web based
> discussion forums. I know a couple of individuals who included copyright
> notices, and threatened legal action against at least a couple of forums
> for violating it. Haven't seen anything like that recently.

I was wondering about that. I imagine that posting to my newsserver
implies permission for it to be copied to other newsservers, but putting
it in a message board sounds a bit much. I know that if someone
published a collection of my posts, or even one of my posts, without my
permission, I could sue. OTOH I suppose with Linux and the FSF and OSS
and so on, getting the information out there is the most important thing.
>> I'm switching ISPs, and I don't recall my new ISP mentioning anything at
>> all about Usenet newsgroups in their advertising. (My old ISP did
>> mention "over 40,000 newsgroups" in their ads.) It turns out that my
>> new ISP has about 30,000 newsgroups
>
> Given that there are only ~2300 groups in the Big Eight list, I don't
> suppose that 30 or 40K shouldn't be enough. though I thought that
> Supernews was carrying more than that.

Maybe it does with an individual subscription to Supernews... maybe ISPs
have a choice of plans with varying numbers of NGs. So far I've only
noticed one NG that my old ISP carried that my new one doesn't, and it
was one I'd unsubscribed from anyway.

To my slight surprise, my new ISP, which is Verizon DSL (no complaints
so far), carries 19 NGs starting with "0.verizon", presumably so they'll
be at the top of the list. One of them is 0.verizon.linux which Verizon
does NOT participate in, but at least they acknowledge its existence.
It seems to deal with all sorts of Linux questions, not just ones
relating to connectivity. Another one is 0.verizon.newsgroup.requests.
>> but I figured that if it didn't include Usenet, I could find a decent
>> newsserver for a low price.
>
> There's a newsgroup 'alt.free.newsservers' you could check. A problem
> I've seen with them is that they tend to be abused by trolls and other
> clueless fools, and some wind up on killfiles.

Yes, I've heard that the free ones have limitations or other
disadvantages. I figured I'd be better off paying a small fee for a
decent one. I even checked out Supernews's prices, because they've done
a good job as a newsserver for my old ISP, and they start at $4/month.
See https://www.supernews.com/signup/ if you're curious.
> Looks like gnilink.net to me.

I'll look into that, out of curiosity.
> Don't forget that news was originally distributed using UUCP, and that
> demanded a bang path environment.

I tend to associate bang paths with BBSs, as all my student accounts
have been .bitnet or .edu. I wish I'd kept my ca. 1985 network
addressing handbook, written by the college sysadmin, which covered
naming, network paths, and gateways. I do remember in 1986, sending
email from my college account to a friend at RPI, and getting it bounced
back with the explanation "Students are not allowed to receive network
messages."

Another Adam

Re: Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

On Thu, 14 Jun 2007in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in article, Another Adam wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote:
>I was wondering about that. I imagine that posting to my newsserver
>implies permission for it to be copied to other newsservers, but
>putting it in a message board sounds a bit much.

It's an extremely muddy situation. Your posting is probably on several
hundred news servers around the world - did you give them permission to
distribute it? ;-)
>I know that if someone published a collection of my posts, or even one
>of my posts, without my permission, I could sue.

Well, then you get into the fun and games called jurisdictions. You
could file suit in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York
but would that really impress someone in East Spamistan? More
importantly, would it have the slightest effect on them? Would it be
worth the expenses you'd have doing so? It's bad enough getting a
judgment against someone in a different state thanks to differing
laws in the various jurisdictions, but it's substantially more
difficult in another county even assuming reciprocal agreements.
>OTOH I suppose with Linux and the FSF and OSS and so on, getting the
>information out there is the most important thing.

Laws still apply, and copyright is one of the more universal laws
around the world. In some countries you don't have to declare that
material is copyrighted - while others may make it easier to effect
legal action if a claim to such rights are part of the document in
question. Look at the HOWTOs. or one of the "COPYING" files you are
likely to have squirreled away on your system:

[compton ~]$ locate COPYING | wc -l
149
[compton ~]$
>> I thought that Supernews was carrying more than [30-40k newsgroups]
>Maybe it does with an individual subscription to Supernews... maybe
>ISPs have a choice of plans with varying numbers of NGs. So far I've
>only noticed one NG that my old ISP carried that my new one doesn't,
>and it was one I'd unsubscribed from anyway.

I've always accessed Supernews as part of some ISPs package of services
and the last time I looked at their .newsrc file, it was 33k of groups.
>To my slight surprise, my new ISP, which is Verizon DSL (no complaints
>so far)

You might have mail problems - they often do a Sender Verification (try
to connect to the sending mail server and _open_ an SMTP dialog to see
if the envelope sender is a valid username) which most people consider
to be abuse, and that has Verizon on some block lists. Their mail
servers are also using some form of block list such that they refuse
connections to some (quite large) ISPs - t-online.net (Deutsche Telekom
AG) being one. Google for Verizon in the Usenet newsgroup
news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting.
>carries 19 NGs starting with "0.verizon", presumably so they'll be at
>the top of the list.

I've not looked at the reason, but the newsgroup list from giganews
starts with 157 groups that begin with 'alt.test*', then five classic
"important" groups (news.announce.newusers, news.answers,
news.groups.questions, news.newusers.questions, news.software.readers)
before starting with "0.akita-inu" and "0.alaskan-malamute" and so on.
In a rather stupid default, those 157 test groups and five "news.*"
show up as if you had subscribed to them. (One or two test groups I
could agree with, but 157???). Oh, and I only see 9 of the 0.verizon.*
groups here ;-)
>One of them is 0.verizon.linux which Verizon does NOT participate in,
>but at least they acknowledge its existence. It seems to deal with all
>sorts of Linux questions, not just ones relating to connectivity.

I've seen a number of providers that have at least some information
about how to connect a *nix box. One of the earliest I recall was a
fairly extensive page from Worldnet.att (att.net) back in 1995. If
you were lucky, the helldesk klown remembered the URL, but that was
the total extent of their support of Linux (and in reality the page
had been created by one of their users). Support is generally limited
to a droid reading from a script (customer says "this", corrective
action is to do "that") and possibly punishing the staff that go
beyond what's in the scripts. This is reasonable given the positively
miniscule technical knowledge the front line staff is expected to have.
I occasionally run into this problem with one of the ISPs I have (I
love to hear their branes hit the floor when I answer their "when did
you last reboot?" question with "lessee, 'uptime' says the system has
been up for 140 days six hours and seventeen minutes, but what has
that got to do with the fact that your perimeter router is dropping
half the traffic").
>Yes, I've heard that the free ones have limitations or other
>disadvantages. I figured I'd be better off paying a small fee for a
>decent one. I even checked out Supernews's prices, because they've done
>a good job as a newsserver for my old ISP, and they start at $4/month.

Supernews has a _very_ good reputation for keeping their spool clean.
Only reason I'm not using them is that my primary ISP provides a
different server.
>I tend to associate bang paths with BBSs, as all my student accounts
>have been .bitnet or .edu. I wish I'd kept my ca. 1985 network
>addressing handbook, written by the college sysadmin, which covered
>naming, network paths, and gateways.

I long since lost my copies, and can barely remember who our peers were.
>I do remember in 1986, sending email from my college account to a friend
>at RPI, and getting it bounced back with the explanation "Students are
>not allowed to receive network messages."

At RPI? ARIN says they didn't get their /16 until 2/27/86, but I've
got notes and an RFC that says it was mid 1985. Somewhat surprised
about the prohibition, as I know some who were students at several
West Coast universities, as well as Cornell and MIT back then and
had no difficulty sending/receiving mail.

Old guy

Re: Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

On Sun, 17 Jun 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in article, Adam wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote:
>>> Verizon DSL
>>
>> You might have mail problems
>Okay, I looked, and it does indeed seem that Verizon doesn't have the
>best reputation, but it seems they're improving. However, I looked at
>one site (dslreports?) that had reviews of DSL providers, and BestWeb's
>DSL got only extreme reviews -- either five stars or no stars.

You're looking at it from a completely different perspective. I'm
referring to how other ISPs on the Internet feel about them, not how
their customers feel.
>BestWeb's dialup service (they are a local ISP) has gone downhill since
>I started with them in 1999. Recently there have been mornings where
>I'd spend literally half an hour redialing just to get any kind of
>connection, and have to give up. On better days, it would take several
>attempts to get a "fast" dialup connection, "fast" meaning > 33.6 kbps.
> And many days, my connection would get dropped at random intervals.
>We discussed this one for a long time in a.o.l.mandriva.

I thought that replacing the phone cable fixed this. Oh, well.
>My guess is that they put the 'test' groups first so that people who
>don't know what they're doing will wind up there instead of disrupting a
>"real" newsgroup, and they put those 'news.*' next because they felt
>they were important. Just my guess, but it makes sense to me, kind of.

Well, yes but...
>> In a rather stupid default, those 157 test groups and five "news.*"
>> show up as if you had subscribed to them.
>
>What?! Well, that's bound to scare some people away from Usenet, which
>could be either a good or a bad thing, depending.

Like I said - two or three would be OK, but 157??? For most people,
that is like five or six screens full of names. Definitely a bad idea.
>> Oh, and I only see 9 of the 0.verizon.* groups here ;-)

[snip list of 0.verizon.*]

[compton ~]$ grep 0.verizon ../newsrc | column
0.verizon.adsl 0.verizon.newsgroup.requests
0.verizon.discussion-general 0.verizon.security
0.verizon.email.spam 0.verizon.test
0.verizon.flame 0.verizon.windowsxp
0.verizon.linux
[compton ~]$
>I'm unofficial "tech support" for my parents, so I need some version of
>Windows installed. I figure if anyone at a help desk asks what OS, or
>what version of Windows, I'm running, I can give them one of the answers
>they can handle.

I don't bother calling them when the problem might be on my end. In most
cases, it only takes a minute or so to isolate that out - so when I _do_
call them, I know the problem is on their side, and can provide enough
details in the initial statement for them to grok the problem. (I don't
say "hello, the internet is down").
>> Somewhat surprised about the prohibition, as I know some who were
>> students at several West Coast universities, as well as Cornell and
>> MIT back then and had no difficulty sending/receiving mail.
>
>Obviously my college let us send network mail. They just asked us to
>be nice about it. In '89 I tried emailing the same friend still at
>RPI, and by then he was allowed to receive network mail.

In the 1980s, the schools had the ultimate disciplinary action. If you
screwed up, you lost access. and that probably meant flunking the course
as a minimum. Now they don't have that clout, because everyone has a
computer and Internet access elsewhere.

Old guy

Re: Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

Moe Trin wrote:
>> it does indeed seem that Verizon doesn't have the
>> best reputation, but it seems they're improving.
>
> You're looking at it from a completely different perspective. I'm
> referring to how other ISPs on the Internet feel about them, not how
> their customers feel.

Oh, okay. Like how I (used to) look down on anything posted from an AOL
account. I see how some other ISPs don't like Verizon, but pretty much
put up with it because VZ has so many customers. Is there any sort of
reputation that goes with being a Verizon customer?
>> BestWeb's dialup service (they are a local ISP) has gone downhill since
>> I started with them in 1999. [etc]
>
> I thought that replacing the phone cable fixed this. Oh, well.

No, I just replaced the phone cable a few days ago. Today I tried
accessing them via dialup. I had no problem getting a connection at a
fast ( > 45 kbps) speed, but effective throughput was practically zero.
I wonder if they'll notice that one of their dialup customers is
accessing their servers at DSL speeds. Btw I am going to keep my dialup
modem connected, even after my dialup service runs out. As someone
pointed out, they can be used to send faxes, which a DSL modem can't do.
> [compton ~]$ grep 0.verizon ../newsrc | column
[snip]

I wasn't aware that ANY of 0.verizon.* could be accessed through anyone
else's server.

[ISP help desk]
> I don't bother calling them when the problem might be on my end.

Yes, I've picked up on the Linux attitude of "try to do it yourself, if
at all possible."

Adam

Re: Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

Adam wrote:
> Moe Trin wrote:
>>> it does indeed seem that Verizon doesn't have the
>>> best reputation, but it seems they're improving.
>>
>> You're looking at it from a completely different perspective. I'm
>> referring to how other ISPs on the Internet feel about them, not how
>> their customers feel.
>
> Oh, okay. Like how I (used to) look down on anything posted from an AOL
> account.

Be of good cheer. Now you have Google Groups posters to look down at
with the dame disdain.

(And in fact when AOHell dropped Usenet it advised their users to move
to Google Groups.)

Re: Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

Blinky the Shark wrote:
>> Oh, okay. Like how I (used to) look down on anything posted from an AOL
>> account.
>
> Be of good cheer. Now you have Google Groups posters to look down at
> with the dame disdain.

Plus, of course, as Linux users we can look down on Windows users!
> (And in fact when AOHell dropped Usenet it advised their users to move
> to Google Groups.)

I must have missed the news about AOL dropping Usenet. I did wonder why
there didn't seem to be any posts from AOL addresses any more!

Adam

Re: Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

Adam wrote:
> Blinky the Shark wrote:
>>> Oh, okay. Like how I (used to) look down on anything posted from an AOL
>>> account.
>>
>> Be of good cheer. Now you have Google Groups posters to look down at
>> with the dame disdain.
>
> Plus, of course, as Linux users we can look down on Windows users!

Do you know about The Last Man Theory? Somewhere in the whole chain of
looking down at (pointing at and laughing; whatever) is one guy that
there's nobody lower than. There's nobody in any worse shape than he
is. He has nobody to point at and laugh, nobody to hold in disdain.
He's The Last Man. Aren't you glad you're not him?
>> (And in fact when AOHell dropped Usenet it advised their users to move
>> to Google Groups.)
>
> I must have missed the news about AOL dropping Usenet. I did wonder why
> there didn't seem to be any posts from AOL addresses any more!

Re: [OT] Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

Blinky the Shark wrote:
> Do you know about The Last Man Theory? Somewhere in the whole chain of
> looking down at (pointing at and laughing; whatever) is one guy that
> there's nobody lower than. There's nobody in any worse shape than he
> is. He has nobody to point at and laugh, nobody to hold in disdain.
> He's The Last Man. Aren't you glad you're not him?

By coincidence, yesterday I was reading about Sammy Davis Jr. He once
said, "You got it easy. I'm a short, ugly, one-eyed, black Jew. What do
you think it's like for me?" Is that a Last Man? :-)

Re: [OT] Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

Adam wrote:
> Blinky the Shark wrote:
>> Do you know about The Last Man Theory? Somewhere in the whole chain of
>> looking down at (pointing at and laughing; whatever) is one guy that
>> there's nobody lower than. There's nobody in any worse shape than he
>> is. He has nobody to point at and laugh, nobody to hold in disdain.
>> He's The Last Man. Aren't you glad you're not him?
>
> By coincidence, yesterday I was reading about Sammy Davis Jr. He once
> said, "You got it easy. I'm a short, ugly, one-eyed, black Jew. What do
> you think it's like for me?" Is that a Last Man? :-)

Re: Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

On Tue, 19 Jun 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in article, Adam wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote:
>> You're looking at it from a completely different perspective. I'm
>> referring to how other ISPs on the Internet feel about them, not how
>> their customers feel.
>
>Oh, okay. Like how I (used to) look down on anything posted from an
>AOL account.

From rec.arts.sf.written, in a thread entitled "What is AOL?"
> An organization set up to give Internetters someone to make ethnic
> jokes about.
-- (repeated in rec.humor.funny, rec.humor.funny.reruns)

In the nineties, it seemed that half if my nephews were using AOL as
their "ISP" in spite of my scathing comments. They've since moved on
to other providers, but retain the habit of hitting the "forward this
to every person I've ever received mail from" button (I dunno, it
might be a default in their browser) and never think about trimming
the garbage off. I finally fixed the problem by using dynamic email
usernames that expire every Sunday (can you say "cron-job"? I thought
you could).
>I see how some other ISPs don't like Verizon, but pretty much put up
>with it because VZ has so many customers. Is there any sort of
>reputation that goes with being a Verizon customer?

I don't _know_ of any problems with the customers - I think the anger
is directed at Verizon itself.
>> I thought that replacing the phone cable fixed this. Oh, well.
>
>No, I just replaced the phone cable a few days ago. Today I tried
>accessing them via dialup. I had no problem getting a connection at a
>fast ( > 45 kbps) speed, but effective throughput was practically zero.

I take it you are giving up on dialin. Were I to look further at this
problem, I'd be looking at a tcpdump output to see WTF.
>I wonder if they'll notice that one of their dialup customers is
>accessing their servers at DSL speeds.

Highly unlikely that they'd notice the speed, but they certainly should
notice the "remote" IP address.
>Btw I am going to keep my dialup modem connected, even after my dialup
>service runs out. As someone pointed out, they can be used to send
>faxes, which a DSL modem can't do.

I have dialup as a backup, and to access two other ISPs. Sending Faxes?
I wasn't aware of any problem, but on the rare occasion when I do need
to send a fax, I'll dig our the fax that's in the garage and connect it
to the (analog) phone line.
>I wasn't aware that ANY of 0.verizon.* could be accessed through anyone
>else's server.

Some commercial news server like to advertise having more groups than
anyone else as a gimmick to get customers. giganews is one of those,
which is why they have over 107000 newsgroups. Looking for Polish
language groups? They have 300 pl.* as well as 697 Italian (it.*),
450 French (fr.*), and so on.
>[ISP help desk]
>> I don't bother calling them when the problem might be on my end.
>
>Yes, I've picked up on the Linux attitude of "try to do it yourself,
>if at all possible."

Main reason I don't bother is that I already know that the helldesk
staff can't even _spell_ Linux, never mind having the faintest clue
how it operates. (Actually, I'm not to sure they have a good idea
how windoze operates either.)

Old guy

Re: [OT] Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

Cute! I considered creating my own web page, but couldn't think of
anything to put on it. I finally came up with the idea that a web page
consisting of the most useful links that I've found over the years could
actually be a positive contribution to the Web. One more thing on my
"computer projects to do" list, and pretty far down at that.

Adam

Re: [OT] Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

Moe Trin wrote:
> In the nineties, it seemed that half if my nephews were using AOL as
> their "ISP" in spite of my scathing comments.

I think of AOL as a sort of 'net with training wheels. OTOH just for
fun I got their "You've Got Mail!" wav from one of their free CDs, and
use that as my new mail announcement. Come to think of it, it's been a
while since I've seen any free AOL CDs.
> I take it you are giving up on dialin.

Yes. For reasons having nothing to do with computers, in the near
future I'll need to be available 24/7 for a VERY important phone call,
one that I /want/ to get, so I can't have dialup tying up my phone line,
and I live in a cell phone dead zone. (Is it possible to be in a dead
zone for one cell provider, yet be accessible to another provider?)
With the problems I've been having with dialup, I figured this was as
good a time as any to switch to broadband. Of course I'll also have to
get Call Waiting on my POTS line.

[My old dialup IP]
>> I wonder if they'll notice that one of their dialup customers is
>> accessing their servers at DSL speeds.
>
> Highly unlikely that they'd notice the speed, but they certainly should
> notice the "remote" IP address.

Hmmm. If they *do* notice it, is there anything they can do about it?
My dialup service is paid for through August 28th.
>> Btw I am going to keep my dialup modem connected [...] they can be
>> used to send faxes, which a DSL modem can't do.
>
> I have dialup as a backup, and to access two other ISPs. Sending Faxes?
> I wasn't aware of any problem, but on the rare occasion when I do need
> to send a fax, I'll dig our the fax that's in the garage and connect it
> to the (analog) phone line.

I don't think that my DSL provider includes dialup as a backup. And I
haven't yet needed to send a fax, but just in case...
> Some commercial news server like to advertise having more groups than
> anyone else as a gimmick to get customers. giganews is one of those,
> which is why they have over 107000 newsgroups. Looking for Polish
> language groups? They have 300 pl.* as well as 697 Italian (it.*),
> 450 French (fr.*), and so on.

I think I could get along happily with only a few hundred newsgroups, as
long as they were my choice of newsgroups! Btwhttp://www.nyx.net/~bkraft/ lists a lot of specialized news servers
accessible to the public. Most are from companies and deal specifically
with their products. If sheer number of newsgroups matters, I suppose
those could be added.